Crime

A recent college graduate in Washington says he wants an apology after deputies in Spokane County mistakenly raided his home, with guns drawn, giving him the scare of his life.

Conner Guerrero says he noticed somebody sneaking around his yard at night and assumed it was burglars.

“Just trying to enjoy my evening,” said Guerrero. “All the sudden, I see a flashlight shining through my doors … I’m thinking this could be a dangerous situation for me.”

“I come over to my door and I slap it to say hey someone is in this house and they’re not going to let you come in here,” he told KREM-TV. “Right as soon as I opened this door, and it’s dark outside — it’s very dark and all I can see is a pistol.”

A man yelled “Sheriff’s office” and told him to come out of the house.

“I'm wondering why the hell there is a gun being pointed at me right now!” he said. “They directed me to take a knee, well both knees. The gun [was] still drawn.”

Deputies reportedly said Guerrero was trespassing and didn’t live there. Not until they looked at his I.D. did they realize Guerrero did live there and they had the wrong home.

Instead of apologizing, one of the deputies told Guerrero, “You’re lucky I didn’t f--king shoot you.”

“We went to the wrong house, yes,” said Sheriff Ozzie Knezovich. “ … after that they handled the call for what it was advised of. They showed up, it was a dark house, fresh tire tracks, they were looking for a burglar.”

But officers were responding to a call about a suspicious vehicle, not a burglary.

Guerrero says he's been having trouble sleeping since the incident, but Knezovich blamed him for making it worse.

“You don’t pound on a door, open it and slam it that way. Put yourself in the deputies’ position,” said Knezovich.

Knezovic says the Sheriff’s office issued an apology to Guerrero, but Guerrero wants a personal apology from the two deputies who got the wrong house.